Experimental Latin American Cinema

History and Aesthetics

By Cynthia Tompkins

Publication Year: 2013

This groundbreaking exploration of experimental Latin American film applies Deleuzian theories of cinema in a comparative approach to examine multiple genres and works from the most important national cinematic traditions

Cover

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

I thank Arizona State University for providing research funds to present
preliminary versions of the material included in this book at local, national,
and international venues. I am grateful to audiences in Arizona (Council for
Latin American Studies and Association of Spanish Professors—ADEUU,
2010), Utah...

Introduction: Mise-en-Scène, a Seemingly
International Staging

In this book I analyze experimental films from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba,
Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru of the past twenty years. The focal films in
the chapters were made in 1998–2010. These films are experimental in
that they have been influenced by the first (late 1920s–early 1930s) and
second (1960s–1970s) avant-gardes as evidenced...

Part One: A Neonoir Skew to the Action-Image

1. A Shimmering Suture: Fabián Bielinsky’s Epileptic El aura

El aura (2005) is the last fi lm that the late Fabián Bielinsky (1959–2006)
completed in his lifetime. Bielinsky achieved international acclaim for
Nueve reinas (Nine Queens, 2000), which chronicles an elaborate
scheme to exchange a set of purportedly highly valued postage stamps
for a forged replica. The film’s plot...

Brazilian director Jorge Furtado’s O homem que copiava (The Man Who
Copied, 2003) follows the classic Hollywood noir conventions, with a couple
of murders, a protagonist crazed by greed, and a deceitful woman who
ensnares him. Emphasizing the protagonist’s voyeurism and placing most
of the action...

3. Endless Quest: Chasing Sex, Lies, and Money at
the Gates of Hell in Heitor
Dhalia’s O cheiro do ralo

Noir conventions such as murder and a fi nal reversal that reinstates order
appear in Heitor Dhalia’s O cheiro do ralo (Drained, 2006). The film also
incorporates neonoir conventions such as the dangerous dame whose
crime not only goes unpunished but also leads to her self-realization.1 In
O cheiro do ralo, the typical...

Part Two: Road Movies

4. The Paradoxical Effect of the Documentary: Walter Salles’s Central do Brasil

As one of the most successful and financially viable of the films I discuss
in this book, Walter Salles’s melodramatic Central do Brasil (Central
Station, 1998) apparently follows the industrial Hollywood model, and it
has earned many awards. The generic conventions of the road movie
signal the transition between...

Carlos Sorín is an important transitional figure whose work bridges th e
gap between the most representative directors of the previous generation
and those associated with the New Argentine Cinema.1 Sorín departs from
the idea of cinema as a revolutionary tool as well as from the industrial
model that...

6. Orphans' Solidarity: María Victoria Menis’s El cielito

The synergy of neorealist aspects such as shooting on location with
nonprofessional actors and lyrical experimental sequences naturalized
as dreams is significant in Menis’s El cielito (Little Sky, 2004).1El cielito
is based on a true story. It follows the experiences of Félix (Leonardo
Ramírez), a transient who...

Part Three: Drama

7. Sculpting Time: Inés de Oliveira Cézar’s
Como pasan las horas

Inés de Oliveira Cézar’s focus on time is a recurrent element in her corpus
and in experimental film generally as it evidences the transition between
films centered on action and those around an open-ended journey.1 Rather
than depicting a rationale, these films trace the mystifying allure of time.
Time is central...

Reygadas acknowledges a displacement from the existential crisis in
Japón to a social crisis in Batalla en el cielo (James, “Angels,” 31). Like its
predecessors in the New Latin American Cinema, Reygadas’s Batalla en el
cielo (Battle in Heaven, 2005) offers social critique in that it underscores
economic inequality and rampant corruption...

Part Five: Experimental Auteurism and Intertextuality

As the last of a triptych of films centered on the attractions and revulsions
in the social interdiction of taboo, Reygadas’s Stellet licht returns to the
question of guilt that he explored in Batalla en el cielo. Stellet licht could be
seen as the reverse image of...

By establishing connections across temporal and geographical variations,
the focus on time broadens the scope of events, allowing for a certain
sliding of the signifier between the texts and suggesting other implicit
possibilities. In addition to the interval that results from the paratactical
articulation of the film...

Fernando Pérez Valdés is a transitional figure whose cinematic production
presents an alternative, as it is closely tied to the history of ICAIC
and thus allows us to trace the movement from overtly politicized films to
more subtle, experimental, ambiguous productions that aim for allegorical
readings that allow for a critique...

Part Six: Experimental Pseudo-Documentary

15. Room With A View: Fernando Pérez Valdés’s
Suite Habana

The amazing use of montage turns Fernando Pérez Valdés’s documentary
Suite Habana (2003) into one of the most experimental Latin American
films of recent times. The reinscription and subversion of Bill Nichols’s
observational documentary mode allows for teasing out the synergy
between drama...

16. Life is and is Not: Paz Encina’s Hamaca paraguaya

An accurate representation of the Paraguayan ethos appears throughout
the unabashedly experimental film Hamaca paraguaya (2008). Yet the
film’s director, Paz Encina, somewhat paradoxically counters these arguments
by stating that the film offers an accurate representation of the
Paraguayan ethos...

Conclusion: Possible Futures

The corpus of Experimental Latin American Cinema: History and Aesthetics
consists of films that were, to a greater or lesser degree, influenced
by the first and second European, American, and Latin American avant-gardes.
The effect of the first avant-garde (late 1920s–early 1930s) may
be summed up in terms...

Welcome to Project MUSE

Use the simple Search box at the top of the page or the Advanced Search linked from the top of the page to find book and journal content. Refine results with the filtering options on the left side of the Advanced Search page or on your search results page. Click the Browse box to see a selection of books and journals by: Research Area, Titles A-Z, Publisher, Books only, or Journals only.